Evidence of human habitation in the area of Bulgaria dates from sometime within the Middle Paleolithic Period (Old Stone Age; 100,000 to 40,000 bce). Agricultural communities, though, appeared in the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age), and in the Bronze Age the lands were inhabited by Thracian tribes. The Thracians were eventually expelled or absorbed by Greek, Persian, and Roman colonies, but traces of their culture remain in their monuments devoted to horse worship and in the mummer (Bulgarian: kuker) tradition that still survives in southwestern Bulgaria.

In Roman times Bulgaria was divided between the provinces of Moesia (to the north of the Balkan Mountains) and Thrace (to the south of the Balkans) and was crossed by the main land route from the West to the Middle East. The ruins of Roman towns and settlements are numerous, and extensive sites have been excavated at Plovdiv in the southwest, Varna in the northeast, and other locations. Situated on the Black Sea, the ancient city of Nesebŭr, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, was the Thracian settlement of Mesembria for centuries before it became a Greek colony in the 6th century bce.

The beginnings of modern Bulgaria

Slavic invasions

The story of the modern Bulgarian people begins with the Slavic invasions of the Balkan Peninsula in the 6th and 7th centuries ce, a time when Byzantium was absorbed in prolonged conflict with Persia and could not resist the incursions from the north. Ancient sources refer to two Slavic tribes north of the Danube at this time, the Slavenae and the Antae. Evidence suggests that the Slavenae, to the west, were the ancestors of the Serbs and Croats, while the Antae moved into the regions of Bulgaria, Macedonia, and northern Greece. The Slavic tribes tilled the soil or practiced a pastoral way of life and were organized in patriarchal communities.

Arrival of the Bulgars

The name Bulgaria comes from the Bulgars, a people who are still a matter of academic dispute with respect to their origin (Turkic or Indo-European) as well as to their influence on the ethnic mixture and the language of present-day Bulgaria. They are first mentioned under this name in the sources toward the end of the 5th century ce. Living at that time on the steppes to the north of the Black Sea, the Bulgar tribes were composed of skilled, warlike horsemen governed by khans (chiefs) and boyars (nobles).

The Bulgars were subdued by the Avars in the 6th century, but in 635 Khan Kubrat led a successful revolt and organized an independent tribal confederation known as Great Bulgaria. After Kubrat’s death in 642, the Bulgars were attacked by the Khazars and dispersed. According to Byzantine sources, the Bulgars split into five groups, each under one of Kubrat’s sons. One of these sons, Asparukh (or Isperikh), moved into Bessarabia (between the Dniester and Prut rivers) and then crossed to the south of the Danube, where his people conquered or expelled the Slavic tribes living north of the Balkan Mountains. The Byzantine emperor Constantine IV led an army against the Bulgars but was defeated, and in 681 Byzantium recognized by treaty Bulgar control of the region between the Balkans and the Danube. This is considered to be the starting point of the Bulgarian state.

The first Bulgarian empire

Asparukh and his successors established their court, which they built of stone, at Pliska, northeast of modern Shumen, and a religious centre at nearby Madara. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Bulgars kept their settlements distinct from those of the Slavs, from whom they accepted tribute. They maintained a mixed pastoral and agricultural economy, although much of their wealth continued to be acquired through warfare. Asparukh’s successor, Tervel (701–718), helped to restore Emperor Justinian II to the Byzantine throne and was rewarded with the title “caesar.”

On the whole, however, relations with Byzantium were hostile, and the 8th century was marked by a long series of raids and larger campaigns in which the Byzantine forces were usually victorious. Bulgaria recovered under Khan Krum (reigned 803–814), who, after annihilating an imperial army, took the skull of Emperor Nicephorus I, lined it with silver, and made it into a drinking cup. Under Krum’s successors Bulgaria enjoyed an extended period of peace with Byzantium and expanded its control over Macedonia and parts of what are now Serbia and Croatia.

The spread of Christianity

Internally, the 8th and 9th centuries saw the gradual assimilation of the Bulgars by the Slavic majority. There are almost no sources that describe this process, but it was certainly facilitated by the spread of Christianity, which provided a new basis for a common culture. Boris I of Bulgaria (852–889) was baptized a Christian in 864, at a time when the conflict between the Roman church and the Eastern church in Constantinople was becoming more open and intense. Although Boris’s baptism was into the Eastern church, he subsequently wavered between Rome and Constantinople until the latter was persuaded to grant de facto autonomy to Bulgaria in church affairs.

The spread of Christianity was facilitated by the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who had invented an alphabet in which to write the Slavic language (known as Old Church Slavonic or Old Bulgarian) and almost completed the translation of the Bible (most parts of both the Old and the New Testament) into the vernacular of the land. They also developed a Slavonic liturgy in Moravia. When Moravia committed to Rome and expelled the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, many of them resettled in Bulgaria, where they were welcomed by Boris and undertook the translation of church books and the training of priests. St. Clement and St. Naum are credited with preparing more than 3,000 priests at the religious educational centre (in effect the first Slavic university) they established on the shores of Lake Ohrid (Okhrid) in Macedonia.

Bulgaria’s conversion had a political dimension, for it contributed both to the growth of central authority and to the merging of Bulgars and Slavs into a unified Bulgarian people. Boris adopted Byzantine political conceptions, referring to himself as ruler “by the grace of God,” and the new religion provided justification for suppressing those boyars of Bulgar origin who clung to paganism and the political and social order with which it was linked. In 889 Boris, whose faith apparently was deep and genuine, abdicated to enter a monastery. When his eldest son, Vladimir, fell under the influence of the old boyars and attempted to reestablish paganism, Boris led a coup that overthrew him. After Vladimir was deposed and blinded, Boris convened a council that confirmed Christianity as the religion of the state and moved the administrative capital from Pliska to the Slavic town of Preslav (now known as Veliki Preslav). The council conferred the throne on Boris’s third son, Simeon, and Boris retired permanently to monastic life.

Reign of Simeon I

The reign of Simeon I (893–927) marked the high point of the first medieval Bulgarian state. Educated in Constantinople and imbued with great respect for the arts and Greek culture, Simeon encouraged the building of palaces and churches, the spread of monastic communities, and the translation of Greek books into Slavonic. Preslav was made into a magnificent capital that observers described as rivaling Constantinople. The artisans of its commercial quarter specialized in ceramics, stone, glass, wood, and metals, and Bulgarian tile work in the “Preslav style” surpassed its contemporary rivals and was eagerly imported by Byzantium and Kievan Rus.

Simeon was also a gifted military leader. His campaigns extended Bulgaria’s borders, but he ultimately dissipated the country’s strength in an effort to take Constantinople. When he died, he was master of the northern Balkans, including the Serbian lands, and styled himself “Tsar of the Bulgars and Autocrat of the Greeks,” but his country was near exhaustion.

Under Simeon’s successors, Bulgaria was beset by internal dissension provoked by the spread of Bogomilism (a dualist religious sect) and by assaults from Magyars, Pechenegs, the Rus, and Byzantines. The capital city was moved to Ohrid after the fall of Preslav in 971. In the campaign of 1014 the Byzantine emperor Basil II won a decisive victory over Tsar Samuel, after which he blinded as many as 15,000 prisoners taken in the battle and then released them. (For this act he became known as Basil Bulgaroctonus, or “Basil, Slayer of the Bulgars.”) The shock of seeing his blinded army is said to have caused Samuel’s death. Bulgaria lost its independence in 1018 and remained subject to Byzantium for more than a century and a half, until 1185.

The second Bulgarian empire

With the collapse of the first Bulgarian state, the Bulgarian church fell under the domination of Greek ecclesiastics who took control of the see of Ohrid and attempted to replace the Bulgarian Slavic liturgy with a Greek liturgy. Bulgarian culture was by this time too deeply rooted to be easily changed, and the Byzantine Empire, beset by the attacks of the Seljuq Turks and the disturbances of the Crusaders, lacked the power to support a more forcible Hellenization.

In 1185 the brothers Ivan and Peter Asen of Tŭrnovo launched a revolt to throw off Byzantine sovereignty. The Asen brothers defeated the Byzantines and forced Constantinople to recognize Bulgarian independence. Their brother and successor, Kaloyan (reigned 1197–1207), briefly accepted the supremacy of Rome in church affairs and received a royal crown from the pope. But when Baldwin I, first Latin emperor of Constantinople, refused him recognition and declared war on Bulgaria (claiming all its territory by virtue of succession of the Byzantines), Kaloyan had a change of heart. He defeated Baldwin and afterward reverted to Orthodoxy.

The second Bulgarian empire, with its centre at Tŭrnovo, reached its height during the reign of Tsar Ivan Asen II (1218–41). Bulgaria was then the leading power in the Balkans, holding sway over Albania, Epirus, Macedonia, and Western Thrace. During this period the first Bulgarian coinage appeared, and in 1235 the head of the Bulgarian church received the title of patriarch.

The successors of Ivan Asen II, however, could not match his ability. Moreover, Bulgaria was beset by Mongol attacks from the north and by internal upheavals brought on by the growing burdens placed on the peasantry by the powerful nobles. The great peasant revolt of 1277–80 briefly allowed the swineherd Ivaylo to occupy the royal throne at Tŭrnovo until he was defeated with the aid of the Byzantines. The Asen dynasty died out in 1280 and was followed by the houses of Terter and Shishman, neither of which was very successful in restoring central authority.

The declining state reached its nadir in 1330 when Tsar Mikhail Shishman was defeated and slain by the Serbs at the Battle of Velbuzhd (modern Kyustendil). Bulgaria lost its Macedonian lands to the Serbian empire of Stefan Dušan, which then became the dominant Balkan power for the next four decades. Bulgaria appeared to be on the point of disintegration into feudal states when the invasions of the Ottoman Turks began.

Ottoman rule

The Ottoman Turks first entered the Balkans as mercenaries of Byzantium in the 1340s, and they returned as invaders in their own right during the following decade. Between 1359 and 1362 Sultan Murad I wrested much of Thrace from Byzantine control and captured Adrianople (modern Edirne, Turkey), commanding the route up the Maritsa valley into the heart of the Bulgarian lands. In 1364 the Turks defeated a Crusade sent by Pope Urban V to regain Adrianople, but not before the Crusaders had committed so many atrocities against Orthodox Christians that many Bulgarians came to regard Turkish rule as preferable to alliance with the Roman Catholic West.

Although Ivan Shishman, Bulgaria’s last medieval tsar, declared himself a vassal of Murad in 1371, the Ottomans continued to seek complete domination. Sofia, in the west, was seized in 1382, and Shumen, in the east, fell in 1388. A year later the defeat of the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo sealed the fate of the entire Balkan Peninsula. In 1393, after a three-month siege, Tŭrnovo was taken and burned. Ivan Shishman allegedly died in Turkish captivity three years later. With the capture of a rump Bulgarian kingdom centred at Bdin (Vidin) in 1396, the last remnant of Bulgarian independence disappeared.

The “Turkish yoke”

The five centuries from 1396 to 1878, known as the era of the “Turkish yoke,” are traditionally seen as a period of darkness and suffering. Both national and ecclesiastical independence were lost. The Bulgarian nobility was destroyed—its members either perished, fled, or accepted Islam and Turkicization—and the peasantry was enserfed to Turkish masters. The “blood tax” took a periodic levy of male children for conversion to Islam and service in the Janissary Corps of the Ottoman army.

The picture was not entirely negative, however. Once completed, the Turkish conquest included Bulgaria in a “Pax Ottomanica” that was a marked contrast to the preceding centuries of war and conflict. While Ottoman power was growing or at its height, it provided an acceptable way of life for the Bulgarian population. It was only when the empire was in its decline and unable to control the depredations of local officials or maintain reasonable order that the Bulgarians found Ottoman rule unbearable.

Bulgaria did not change radically in its religious or ethnic composition during the Ottoman period, for the Turks did not forcibly attempt to populate Bulgaria with Turks or to convert all Bulgarians to Islam. With the exception of the people of the Rhodope Mountains who were converted (and thereafter were called Pomaks) and some Catholic communities based in the northwest, the Bulgarian population remained mainly within the Orthodox church. Although Turkish administrators were established in the towns and countryside, Turkish peasants did not settle in Bulgaria in large numbers, and those who did immigrate were concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of the country and in some of the valleys of Macedonia and Thrace. In the 15th and 16th centuries Turkish authorities permitted the immigration of Jewish refugees from the Christian West. While the majority were resettled in Constantinople and Salonika (now Thessaloníki, Greece), most Bulgarian towns acquired small Jewish communities in which newcomers mostly from Spain mixed with the already existent Jewish population.

Ottoman administration

At the time Bulgaria was conquered, the Ottoman Empire was divided into two parts for administrative purposes. Bulgaria was part of the European section, called Rumelia, headed by a beglerbeg (“lord of lords”) who resided in Sofia. As the empire expanded, this system proved inadequate, and in the 16th century it was replaced by territorial divisions called vilayets (provinces), further subdivided into sanjaks (districts). The borders of these units changed many times over the centuries. Bulgarian lands were assigned as fiefs to Turkish warriors, or spahis, who could impose taxes and other obligations on the subject population. Fiefs were also given to governors and other officeholders to provide their income, and lands in the form of vakifs—designated for the support of religious, educational, or charitable enterprises—were assigned to specific institutions. The spahi had no right of lordship or justice over the peasants living in his fief, and the Bulgarians frequently retained their traditional village administration and the customs of local law with regard to issues in which Turkish interests were not involved.

Decline of the Ottoman Empire

The decline of the Ottoman Empire was marked by military defeats at the hands of Christian Europe and by a weakening of central authority. Both of these factors were significant for developments in Bulgaria. As the empire was thrown on the defensive, the Christian powers, first Austria and then Russia, saw the Bulgarian Christians as potential allies. Austrian propaganda helped to provoke an uprising at Tŭrnovo in 1598, and two others occurred in 1686 and 1688 after the Turks were forced to lift the Siege of Vienna. Under Catherine II (the Great), Russia began to assert itself as the protector of the Orthodox population of the Ottoman Empire, a claim that the Sublime Porte (as the government of the empire was called) was forced to recognize in the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774.

Of greater significance, however, was the inability of the central government to keep the spahis and local officials under control. During the 17th and 18th centuries the spahis succeeded in converting their fiefs to çiftliks, hereditary estates that could not be regulated by the government. Owners of çiftliks were free to impose higher obligations on the peasantry or to drive them off the land. Turkish refugees from lands liberated by Christian states were frequently resettled on çiftliks in Bulgaria, increasing the pressure on the land and the burden on the peasantry. Occasionally, Turkish refugees formed marauding bands that could not be subdued by central authority and that exacted a heavy toll from their Christian victims.

One response among the Bulgarians was a strengthening of the haiduk tradition. The haiduks were guerrillas—some would say bandits—who took to the mountains to live by robbing the Turks. Although the haiduks lacked a strong sense of national consciousness, they kept alive a spirit of resistance and gave rise to legends that inspired later revolts.

The national revival

In the 19th century, growing Bulgarian discontent found direction in a movement of national revival that restored Bulgarian national consciousness and prepared the way for independence. The social foundation of this movement arose from the quickening of economic life in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and from the influence of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, echoes of which, however faint, were heard among the people. A growing demand for cotton cloth and other products stimulated urban development. Many Bulgarian merchant houses were founded, and artisans in the towns began to form guild organizations (esnafi), which played an important role in sponsoring schools and providing scholarships for young Bulgarians to study abroad.

The monk Paisiy of the Khilendar Monastery on Mount Athos is recognized as the founder of the national revival. Little is known of his life except that he came from a merchant family in Bansko, a town in southwestern Bulgaria that maintained commercial relations with Vienna. In the 1760s Paisiy used texts preserved on Mount Athos to write his Slaveno-Bulgarian History. It reminded Bulgarians of the greatness of their past empires and called on them to forswear foreign customs and to take pride in their race and use their own language. Sofroniy, bishop of Vratsa, helped to spread Paisiy’s influence. In his own writings he stressed the importance of education, without which his people would remain, in his words, “dumb animals.”

Spread of education

The spread of education was in fact the centrepiece of the Bulgarian national revival. In 1835 Vasil Aprilov founded a Lancasterian school, based on the monitorial system of instruction, in Gabrovo. With the monk Neofit Rilski (Neophyte of Rila) as its teacher, it was the first school to teach in Bulgarian. Its work was facilitated by the appearance of a Bulgarian publishing industry and a small but influential periodical press. By the 1870s the guilds, town and village councils, and wealthy groups and individuals had founded some 2,000 schools in Bulgaria, each providing free education. The schools were supplemented with the chitalishte, or “reading room,” an institution that first appeared in Svishtov in 1856 but soon spread throughout the country. More than just a small library, the chitalishte staged lectures, meetings, plays, concerts, debates, and social events. It was of immense importance for those who did not acquire formal education.

The influence of American Protestant missionaries in the 19th century, mainly in the western part of the country, led to the establishment in Samokov in 1856 of the American College, which was later enlarged and moved to Sofia. Many of the students at Robert College (founded 1861) in Istanbul, Turkey, were young Bulgarians who, after the liberation from Ottoman rule in 1878, took important political and economic positions in Bulgaria. Additionally, a considerable number of young Bulgarians were sent by their families or by sponsors to study in Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Switzerland.

Cultural movement against Greek influence

The cultivation of Bulgarian national consciousness was initially a cultural rather than a political movement. Consequently, it was directed more against the “cultural yoke” of the Greeks than the “political yoke” of the Ottoman Empire. After the Turkish conquest of the Balkans, the Greek patriarch had become the representative of the Rūm millet, or “Roman nation,” which comprised all the subject Christian nationalities.

Considered by some historians as the sui generis Bulgarian reformation, the desire to restore an independent Bulgarian church was a principal goal of the national “awakeners.” Their efforts were rewarded in 1870 when the Sublime Porte issued a decree establishing an autocephalous Bulgarian church, headed by an exarch, with jurisdiction over the 15 dioceses of Bulgaria and Macedonia, in which more than two-thirds of the population defined itself as Bulgarian. Although the Greek patriarch refused to recognize this church and excommunicated its adherents, it became a leading force in Bulgarian life, representing Bulgarian interests at the Sublime Porte and sponsoring the further expansion of Bulgarian churches and schools. After the liberation of 1878, it provided a powerful means of maintaining Bulgarian national feeling in Macedonia.

National revolution

The inability of the Sublime Porte to maintain order or to carry through its program of reform known as Tanzimat (1839–76), especially when contrasted with Greek and Serbian independence, engendered an explicitly revolutionary movement among the Bulgarians. Inspired by the haiduk tradition, Georgi Rakovski formed a Bulgarian legion on Serbian territory in 1862 to send armed bands to harass the Turks in Bulgaria. In 1866 Lyuben Karavelov and Vasil Levski created a Bulgarian Secret Central Committee in Bucharest, Romania, to prepare for a national uprising. It dispatched “apostles” into Bulgaria to spread the message among the people. Levski, who worked for a democratic, independent republic, is considered to be the greatest hero of the revolutionary movement. He was captured during one of his organizing missions into Bulgaria and was hanged in Sofia in 1873.

Against the background of a wider Balkan crisis, the Bulgarian revolutionary committees laid plans for a nationwide uprising in 1876. The April Uprising broke out prematurely on April 20 (May 2, New Style) and was violently put down. The atrocities committed against the civilian population by irregular Turkish forces, including the massacre of 15,000 Bulgarians near Plovdiv, increased the Bulgarian desire for independence. They also outraged public opinion in Europe, where they became known as the Bulgarian Horrors. A conference of European statesmen proposed a series of reforms, and, when the sultan refused to implement them, Russia declared war. In the ensuing campaign, Bulgarian volunteer forces fought alongside the Russian army, earning particular distinction in the epic battle for Shipka Pass.

Treaties of San Stefano and Berlin

Advancing to the outskirts of Constantinople, the Russians dictated the Treaty of San Stefano, which called for a large independent Bulgaria within the territory of the exarchate of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, stretching from the Danube River to the Aegean Sea and from the Vardar and Morava valleys to the Black Sea. The boundaries stated in the treaty, signed on February 19 (March 3), 1878, represented the fulfillment of Bulgaria’s territorial aspirations and remained for generations the national ideal of the people. But the creation of a large Bulgaria, perceived as an outpost of Russian influence in the Balkans, was intolerable to Austria-Hungary and Britain, and they forced a revision of the Treaty of San Stefano a few months later at the Congress of Berlin.

The Treaty of Berlin, signed July 1 (July 13), 1878, created a much smaller Bulgarian principality, autonomous but under the sovereignty of the Sublime Porte, in the territory between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains and the region of Sofia, which soon became the capital. To the south the treaty created the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia, subject to the sultan but with a Christian governor. Macedonia was returned entirely to the Ottoman Empire. The treaty also stipulated that Bulgaria would elect an assembly of notables to meet at Tŭrnovo to prepare a constitution and to choose a prince who would be confirmed by the powers.

The liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish rule also functioned as a land reform, for Russian occupation authorities and subsequent Bulgarian governments confiscated the Turkish estates and sold them in small parcels to the peasantry. Bulgaria began its independence as a nation of smallholders with one of the most egalitarian land distributions in Europe.

The principality

By the time the constituent assembly convened in Tŭrnovo in February 1879, conservative and liberal political tendencies had emerged and rapidly coalesced into parties. The Liberal Party, under Dragan Tsankov, Petko Karavelov (the brother of Lyuben Karavelov), and Petko Slaveikov, dominated the assembly and created a constitution that was one of the most democratic in Europe. It provided for a single National Assembly elected by universal male suffrage, guarantees of civil rights, and strict limits on the power of the prince.

Political divisions under Alexander of Battenberg

The democratic character of the constitution was at variance with the views of Bulgaria’s first prince, Alexander I of Battenberg (of both Austrian and Russian ancestry), and with those of the Russian advisers who played a large role in his court. The prince first formed a Conservative ministry, but he was forced by popular agitation to form a Liberal government under Tsankov. Tsankov’s government undertook the construction of judicial and state apparatuses and put an end to the depredations of brigands who had remained active in the mountains after the war.

In Prince Alexander’s estimation, however, the Liberals showed insufficient respect for the institution of monarchy. Moreover, Russia was concerned that the Liberals were starting to follow the same pro-Western tendencies as the Conservatives. As a result, Alexander dismissed the Liberal government in favour of a pro-Russian one led by Gen. Casimir Erenroth, a Finn in Russian service who had earlier been charged with setting up the Bulgarian army. Erenroth used rigged elections to select the Grand National Assembly, which agreed in 1881 to suspend the constitution and invest the prince with absolute power for seven years.

A period of dictatorship followed under the Russian generals Leonid N. Sobolev and Alexander V. Kaulbars. Prince Alexander, however, soon found his Russian allies harder to deal with than their Liberal predecessors. The popular sentiment against the Russian generals was growing too. In September 1883 Alexander compromised with his opponents, dismissed the Russians, restored the constitution, and accepted a Conservative-Liberal coalition government, but the coalition was soon supplanted by an entirely Liberal government under Petko Karavelov.

Meanwhile, popular sentiment for unification with Bulgaria had been growing in Eastern Rumelia, and the restoration of the constitution provided the Eastern Rumelians with the stimulus to prepare for a seizure of power in Plovdiv. In September 1885, with the prior approval of Prince Alexander, they staged a bloodless coup d’état and declared the unification of the two states. Turkey did not resist, but Russia, incensed by such independence of action in its diplomatic sphere of influence, refused to approve, and Tsar Alexander III ordered the withdrawal of all Russian officers and advisers from the Bulgarian army.

In these circumstances, King Milan of Serbia, stating that the balance of power in the Balkans was endangered by Bulgarian unification, suddenly declared war. The Serbs advanced as far as Slivnitsa, where they were met and defeated by the untrained Bulgarian army under Prince Alexander’s command. Bulgarian forces pursued the Serbs across the frontier but were stopped by the threat of Austrian intervention. Peace and the status quo were restored by the Treaty of Bucharest (February 19 [March 3], 1886) and the convention of Tophane (March 24 [April 5], 1886). Prince Alexander was appointed governor-general of Eastern Rumelia, and the Eastern Rumelian administrative and military forces were merged with those of Bulgaria.

Prince Alexander had little time to enjoy the fruits of his popular triumph. On August 9 (August 21), 1886, a group of Russophile conspirators and military officers whom Alexander had passed over for promotion seized the prince in his palace, forced him to sign a statement of abdication, transported him out of the country, and handed him over to the Russians at the Danube port of Reni. The conspiracy was countered, however, by Stefan Stambolov, president of the National Assembly, and by Lieut. Col. Sava Mutkurov, commander of the Plovdiv garrison, who took control of Sofia and recalled the prince. Alexander was not detained by the Russians, but he declared he would not remain in Bulgaria without Russian approval. When the tsar refused to give it, Alexander abdicated on August 26 (September 7), appointing a regency composed of Stambolov, Mutkurov, and Petko Karavelov.

The regency was successful in preserving order but had great difficulty in finding a new prince, for few wished to assume the throne in the face of Russian hostility. A willing candidate was at last found in the person of 26-year-old Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a grandson of Louis-Philippe of France, who was then serving as an officer in the Austrian army. Ferdinand was elected prince by the Grand National Assembly in July 1887.

Prince Ferdinand’s rule

Because Russia declared Ferdinand a usurper, Europe withheld recognition, the bishops of the Holy Synod would not pay him homage, and conspiracies flourished. However, Stambolov, as prime minister from 1887 to 1894, ruthlessly suppressed all opposition. Recognized as one of Europe’s strongmen, he stabilized Bulgaria’s international position, but his methods, which amounted to a virtual dictatorship, alienated much of the population. In 1894 Ferdinand unexpectedly made use of his constitutional right to dismiss Stambolov and replaced him with a government headed by a Conservative, Konstantin Stoilov. A year later the former prime minister was murdered in the street in Sofia.

The change of course in Sofia and the death of Tsar Alexander III facilitated a reconciliation between Bulgaria and Russia. Ferdinand gained international recognition as prince, and in 1896 Tsar Nicholas II became the godfather of Ferdinand’s first son when he was baptized into the Orthodox faith.

Bulgaria at the end of the 19th century

The first two decades following the reestablishment of the Bulgarian state were dominated by efforts at modernization in political, economic, and cultural spheres. The governments of Karavelov (1883–85), Stambolov (1887–94), and Stoilov worked to bring the country closer to Europe. As prince and later as tsar, Ferdinand also played an important role.

Sofia and other cities were modernized, railways were built, trade with European countries (especially Austria-Hungary and Germany) was rapidly developed, and laws encouraging local industry were passed. Special emphasis was put on education, and, by the turn of the century, illiteracy had practically vanished. The University of Sofia (1888) was opened, and large numbers of young Bulgarians were finding ways to study abroad, bringing back European culture and ideas. In the political sphere, parliamentary traditions were established mainly after the fashion of France and Belgium. Full reception of the Continental legal system was effected in the late 1880s and the 1890s, combining institutions from the Roman (French and Italian) and the Pandect (German) legislative systems.

This modernization exacerbated the social differences in a society that was used to being more egalitarian. The desire for reunification with the Bulgarian lands of the exarchate allowed for increases in military expenditures, which led to rising taxes. Internally, there was criticism of this growing bureaucracy and bouts of government corruption. Moreover, the shrinking of the Turkish market and the decline in world grain prices added to the economic problems of rural regions.

Following the restitution of Eastern Rumelia, differences arose among both the Conservatives and the Liberals, and new political parties were formed. In the 1890s two new leftist parties were created—the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party and the Agrarian Union (later Bulgarian National Union). While the first, led by schoolteacher Dimitŭr Blagoev, echoed to a great extent the spreading socialist ideas in Europe and Russia (Blagoev himself had studied in Russia), the Agrarian Union was somewhat unique. Established in 1899, it gained popularity among peasants as well as among educated people who maintained their roots in rural life. Its popularity was largely due to the charismatic leadership of Alexsandŭr Stamboliyski.

Foreign policy under Ferdinand

The period from Stambolov’s fall in 1894 to World War I is known as the era of Ferdinand’s “personal regime.” By encouraging the fragmentation of the political parties and by skillfully using his powers of patronage to manipulate the party chiefs, Ferdinand became the dominant political figure in the country. In 1908, in conjunction with the Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he proclaimed the de jure independence of Bulgaria from the Sublime Porte and assumed the title of tsar. Three years later the Grand National Assembly amended the constitution to give him this title officially and to grant him the right to conclude treaties with foreign states without the consent of the National Assembly.

Macedonia constituted the principal objective of Ferdinand’s diplomacy. On July 20 (August 2), 1903, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) initiated a revolt—known as the Ilinden (St. Elijah’s Day) Uprising—the goal of which was to establish an independent Macedonian state. The revolt, however, was brutally suppressed, focusing attention yet again on the problems of Turkish misrule in Macedonia. In 1908 the revolution of the Young Turks led Balkan statesmen to believe that the time was fast approaching when Macedonia could be wrested from the empire. Greece and Serbia, however, laid claim to portions of Macedonia that Bulgarians regarded as rightfully theirs. It was the great mistake of Bulgarian diplomacy to organize a war against the Ottoman Empire without first clearly resolving these competing claims.

The Balkan Wars

In March 1911, against the background of increasing unrest in Macedonia, Ferdinand appointed a new government under Ivan Geshov to begin negotiations for an anti-Turkish alliance. In May 1912 Bulgaria signed a treaty with Serbia providing for military cooperation but leaving a large section of Macedonia as a contested zone, the fate of which would be determined after the war. A quickly made agreement with Greece also made no provision for the future distribution of territory. An arrangement between Greece and Serbia and verbal agreements with Montenegro completed the formation of the Balkan League. Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire on September 25 (October 8), and the other Balkan states soon entered the conflict.

The successes of the Balkan League exceeded expectations. Bulgarian forces won major victories at Lozengrad (now Kırklareli) and Lüleburgaz and laid siege to Adrianople (now Edirne) and the Çatalca line of fortifications defending Constantinople, while the Greeks took Salonika (now Thessaloníki), and Serbian troops won a series of battles in Macedonia. The Ottoman Turks asked for an armistice, but Ferdinand insisted that the army attempt to capture Constantinople. When the assault on the Çatalca line failed, leaving the Bulgarian army in a weakened state, the tsar agreed to the armistice, and peace negotiations began in London.

On May 17 (May 30), 1913, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of London, conceding all but a small strip of its European territory. But it proved impossible to divide the territory peacefully among the victors. Serbia and Greece insisted on retaining most of the Macedonian territory they had occupied, and Romania demanded compensation for its neutrality. When Geshov was not able to negotiate a compromise, he resigned in favour of Stoyan Danev, who reflected Ferdinand’s desire for a military solution. On the night of June 16–17 (June 29–30) Bulgarian forces began the Second Balkan War by launching a surprise assault on Greek and Serbian positions in Macedonia. As the Bulgarian attack was being repulsed, Romanian troops began an uncontested march toward Sofia from the north, and Turkey reoccupied the fortress of Adrianople.

By the Treaty of Bucharest, signed on July 28 (August 10), 1913, Romania took the rich lands of the southern Dobruja and the city of Silistra, while Serbia and Greece divided the larger part of Macedonia between them. From its gains in the First Balkan War, Bulgaria retained only a small part of eastern Macedonia, the Pirin region, and a portion of eastern Thrace. This was poor compensation for the loss of the southern Dobruja and of the Bulgarian exarchate in Macedonia. Consequently, the desire to win back what had been lost was the main motivating factor in Bulgaria’s diplomacy when World War I began.

World War I

When World War I began, Bulgaria declared strict neutrality, but the tsar and a Germanophile government under Vasil Radoslavov encouraged both sides to bid for Bulgarian intervention. In this contest, the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary and the German Empire) could offer far more at the expense of Serbia, Greece, and, later, Romania than could the Triple Entente (an alliance of Great Britain, France, and Russia), which had to take the interests of its smaller allies into account. During the summer of 1915, when the military balance swung in Germany’s favour, Bulgaria committed to the Central Powers and declared war on Serbia on October 1 (October 14). Some of the neutralist and pro-entente political figures objected, but none went as far as the Agrarian leader Stamboliyski, who threatened the tsar and issued a call for the troops to resist mobilization. For these acts he was arrested and condemned to life imprisonment.

By the autumn of 1918, approximately 900,000 Bulgarian men, nearly 40 percent of the male population, had been conscripted. The army suffered 300,000 casualties, including 100,000 killed, the most severe per capita losses of any country involved in the war. In the interior, bad weather and the absence of adult male labour cut grain production nearly in half, while those in the towns suffered from shortages of food and fuel and from runaway inflation. “Women’s riots” for food began early in 1917 and continued to the end of the war. The revolutions in Russia and the hopes inspired by American intervention in the war and by U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points peace plan seemed to promise change for Bulgarians and further contributed to the breakdown of civilian order and military discipline. In June 1918 the replacement of the pro-German Radoslavov by Alexander Malinov, a leader of the parliamentary opposition, raised hopes for an end to the war, but instead frustration increased as Malinov yielded to Tsar Ferdinand’s determination to fight on.

On September 15, 1918 (New Style), the Allied forces on the Macedonian front broke through the Bulgarian lines at Dobro Pole. The army dissolved, as many of the troops deserted to return home, and others began a march on Sofia to punish the tsar and party leaders responsible for the war. Ferdinand turned to Stamboliyski, releasing the Agrarian leader from prison in return for his promise to use his influence to restore order among the troops. Stamboliyski, however, joined the uprising and, at the village of Radomir, where rebel troops were encamped, proclaimed Bulgaria a republic. The Radomir Rebellion was short-lived, as the Agrarian-led assault on Sofia was repulsed by German and Macedonian forces that remained loyal to the tsar. But this provided only a temporary respite. The Bulgarian government asked the Allies for an armistice, which was signed on September 29. Four days later Tsar Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his son Boris III and left the country.

Bulgaria was punished for its part in World War I by the Treaty of Neuilly, which assigned the southern portion of the Dobruja region to Romania, a strip of western territory including Tsaribrod (now Dimitrovgrad) and Strumica to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (subsequently called Yugoslavia), and the Aegean territories gained in the Balkan Wars to the Allies, who turned them over to Greece at the Conference of San Remo in 1920. Bulgaria also was disarmed and subjected to a heavy burden of reparations.

Postwar politics and government

Defeat and the hardships of war broke the hold of Bulgaria’s traditional parties on the government. In the first two postwar elections, the Agrarians, communists, and socialists together polled first 59 percent and then 65 percent of the ballots. These parties were not united, however, and a communist-led general strike in the winter of 1919–20 was ruthlessly put down by Stamboliyski, who became prime minister first in coalition with smaller conservative parties and then as head of an all-Agrarian cabinet.

Programs of the Agrarian Union

The years from 1920 to 1923 represented a remarkable period in which the Agrarian Union sought to translate into reality the beliefs and ideas developed in its years in opposition. The Agrarian government introduced a progressive income tax and a land reform directed against the country’s few large estates and against absentee ownership, sponsored the spread of cooperative organizations in agriculture and other branches of the economy, and undertook a massive expansion of the school system, providing for, among other things, free, obligatory secondary education. The Agrarians also introduced the practice of obligatory labour service, by which all young men were required to contribute a year’s labour on state projects in lieu of military conscription. The Agrarian government, however, exhibited authoritarian characteristics, which disturbed the majority of the nation.

Stamboliyski’s foreign policy

Stamboliyski abandoned the traditional Bulgarian goal of territorial expansion, which had required huge military budgets, maintaining a standing army and professional officer corps, and the patronage of the great powers. His policy aimed, above all, to cultivate good relations with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes by accepting the status quo in Macedonia.

Stamboliyski’s policies alienated the old political leaders, the Military League (comprising active and reserve officers), and Tsar Boris’s court. The rightist parties united in the National Alliance (later called Democratic Alliance) and planned to march on Sofia to wrest control of the country. On the left, the communists viewed the Agrarian government as their principal opponent. But the most dangerous enemies were the Military League and Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO).

IMRO established effective control over the Pirin region and launched terrorist attacks across the border into Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia. It also assassinated several Agrarian leaders. Unable to rely on the Bulgarian military against the Macedonian terrorists, Stamboliyski turned to Yugoslavia (as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was soon to be known): by signing the Treaty of Niš, he permitted Yugoslav forces to pursue the Macedonian guerrilla bands into Bulgarian territory.

This treaty, the pressures of dictatorial rule, and an overwhelming Agrarian election victory in early 1923 led Stamboliyski’s opponents to plan a coup d’état. It was organized by the Military League, IMRO, and the old parties, and it probably had the support of Tsar Boris III. When the coup was launched on the night of June 8–9, 1923, it took the Agrarian government by surprise. Stamboliyski was captured a few days later and brutally murdered, and a right-wing government under Aleksandŭr Tsankov took over.

Communist uprising

The Bulgarian communists, who had declared their neutrality when the coup occurred, were chastised by Moscow and directed to prepare an armed revolt against the Tsankov regime. The communists’ September Uprising was ruthlessly suppressed and provided Tsankov with a pretext for outlawing the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1924, though the party would surface briefly again under another name and continued to operate underground for two decades.

The communists struck back in 1925 with a series of terrorist acts, culminating in an attempt to assassinate the tsar and leaders of the government by blowing up Sofia’s Sveta Nedelya Cathedral during services. Although 123 people were killed and hundreds more wounded, the main targets escaped, and the government exacted brutal reprisals.

In the wake of the defeats suffered in 1923 and 1925, the communist leaders escaped abroad, finding positions in the Soviet Union or the Comintern (Communist International). One of them, Georgi Dimitrov, achieved international fame as the chief defendant in the Reichstag fire trial of 1933. Following Dimitrov’s acquittal, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had him appointed secretary-general of the Comintern, a position he held until that body was dissolved in 1943.

Attempts to stabilize government

After 1925 Bulgarian political life began a slow recovery. In January 1926 Tsankov yielded the premiership to the more moderate Andrei Liapchev. A gradual and qualified return to a free press and parliamentary politics marked his five-year tenure, although terrorist acts by IMRO continued and soured Bulgaria’s relations with Yugoslavia and Greece. In 1931 a reconstituted opposition called the Popular Bloc, a coalition that included the moderate wing of the Agrarian Union, defeated the Democratic Alliance.

Coming to power during the Great Depression, the Popular Bloc government was unable to alleviate the dire economic situation and stem a rising tide of labour unrest. On the night of May 18–19, 1934, the Military League carried out a peaceful coup d’état that installed as prime minister Kimon Georgiev, a participant in the 1923 coup. Similar to Italian fascism, the ideology of the new regime was supplied by an elitist group called Zveno (“A Link in a Chain”), which drew its membership from intellectual, commercial, and military circles. Zveno advocated “national restoration” through an authoritarian, nonpartisan regime. The “divisive forces” associated with parliamentary politics were eliminated by the suspension of the constitution and the suppression of all political parties. A new assembly was created, composed of individuals without party affiliation and elected from approved government lists.

The new regime was able to suppress IMRO and restore the government’s authority over Pirin Macedonia, but its political base was too narrow to allow it to consolidate power firmly. The real beneficiary of the 1934 coup was Tsar Boris III. By the end of 1935, he had filled the power vacuum. He used his own clique in the army to unseat and jail Georgiev, purged the Military League, and, by November 1935, installed a subservient government under Georgi Kyoseivanov. The relative weight of parliament was considerably diminished, and the government approximated a royal-military dictatorship, the form of government that had become prominent in eastern Europe.

World War II

After World War II began, Bulgaria proclaimed neutrality. Tsar Boris, however, appointed a new government under a notorious Germanophile, Bogdan Filov, and moved steadily closer to the German orbit. This was especially the case after Germany and the Soviet Union, then allied by the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, forced Romania to restore the southern Dobruja to Bulgaria in August 1940.

Boris’s alliance with Germany

The desire for territorial expansion at the expense of Yugoslavia and Greece and the expectation of a German victory led Boris to join the Axis on March 1, 1941. German troops used Bulgaria as a base from which to attack Yugoslavia and Greece. In return, Bulgarian forces were permitted to occupy Greek Thrace, Yugoslav Macedonia, and part of Serbia.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Japanese attack on the United States, Bulgaria yielded to German pressure to declare war on Great Britain and the United States, a move of only symbolic importance, but Tsar Boris avoided joining the war against the Soviet Union, fearing that this would lead to popular unrest. Bulgaria did not send troops to the front and was relatively untouched by military operations until the summer of 1943, when Allied bombers began to attack rail and industrial centres.

Defending Bulgarian Jews

In 1941 anti-Semitic legislation was enacted in Bulgaria under German pressure to adopt something akin to the Nürnberg Laws. However, the legislation met with a wave of protest and was never strictly implemented. In early 1943 the government complied with German requests to secretly deport non-Bulgarian Jews from occupied territories that had not been incorporated into Bulgaria to the concentration camp at Treblinka (in Poland). The clandestine deportation of Jews from Bulgaria was also scheduled, for March 1943, but Dimitar Peshev, deputy speaker of the National Assembly, managed to force the government to cancel it. Forty-three members of the majority backed a resolution in parliament in defense of Bulgarian Jews, a move supported by many from across the social strata. In late May, in spite of Nazi pressure, Tsar Boris canceled the deportation orders for Bulgaria’s Jews.

Bulgarian resistance to the Axis alliance

Some attempts at forming a resistance were made by Agrarian leaders when Bulgaria joined the Axis. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, however, the Bulgarian Communist Party took the initiative inside the country. Until the final stage of the war, resistance tactics emphasized sabotage and small-group operations. About 10,000 persons are estimated to have participated in or supported the resistance, making it the largest such movement among Germany’s allies. Politically, the communists sought the cooperation of other opposition groups, and in August 1943 the Fatherland Front was formed, composed of communists, left-wing Agrarians, Zveno, socialists, and some independent political figures. The front’s influence grew as the military situation of Germany deteriorated.

Many Bulgarians expected Tsar Boris to break with the German alliance when circumstances permitted. On August 28, 1943, however, just after a stormy encounter with Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Germany, the tsar suffered a fatal heart attack. Because his son and heir, Simeon II, was only six years old, Filov established a regency council headed by himself and appointed a new government under Dobri Bozhilov, which remained loyal to the German alliance. In May 1944, faced with the continuing German collapse and stern Allied threats that Germany’s allies would be severely punished, Bozhilov resigned.

He was replaced by the right-wing Agrarian Ivan Bagrianov, who began secret negotiations for surrender with the Allies but at a snail’s pace. At the end of August the sudden surrender of Romania, which brought Soviet troops to the Danube months before they had been expected, created panic in Sofia. When Bagrianov’s attempt to proclaim Bulgarian neutrality was rejected as insufficient by both Britain and the Soviet Union, the prime minister resigned and was replaced by Kosta Muraviev of the Agrarian Union on September 2, 1944.

Three days later, aware that the new government was preparing to break with Germany, the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria and entered the country unopposed. Simultaneously, the Fatherland Front began preparations for a coup d’état. On September 8 Muraviev declared war against Germany; nonetheless, military forces organized by Zveno occupied key points in Sofia and toppled Muraviev’s government in the name of the Fatherland Front. Kimon Georgiev of Zveno became the new prime minister and sought an immediate armistice with the Soviet command.

The early communist era

The consolidation of communist power in Bulgaria was carried out by 1948, coinciding with the completion of the peace treaty with the Allies and the presence of Soviet occupation forces. In the coalition Fatherland Front government, the communists had control of the interior and judicial ministries, which were crucial in setting up the new state.

Consolidation of power

Exploiting the popular feeling that those who were responsible for Bulgaria’s involvement in the war should be punished, the regime established “people’s courts” to prosecute the political leaders of the wartime period. The first mass trial (December 20, 1944–February 1, 1945) resulted in death sentences for more than 100 top officials. By the time sentencing was completed in April 1945, the courts had tried 11,122 people, of whom 2,730 were condemned to death, 1,305 to life imprisonment, and 5,119 to terms of up to 20 years. (Unofficial estimates suggested that as many as 30,000 political opponents of the new regime, including anti-Nazi activists, were killed without trial.) When the army returned following the German surrender, the regime also purged the officer corps.

On November 4, 1945, Georgi Dimitrov returned to Bulgaria after 22 years of exile and became prime minister. Given the Bulgarian Communist Party’s control of the instruments of power, the hopes of the noncommunist opposition rested on the Western democracies. Indeed, during the summer of 1945 the regime postponed parliamentary elections after Great Britain and the United States protested the undemocratic character of the proposed electoral laws. Bulgaria, however, was not a high priority on the diplomatic agenda of the West. As early as October 1944 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had shown his willingness to consign the country to Soviet control during his “percentages discussion” with the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin.

Bulgarian communists and their Soviet sponsors moved more forcefully to eliminate the internal opposition. Elections held in November 1945 returned a substantial majority of communists and their allies. In September 1946 a referendum decided by a 93 percent majority proclaimed Bulgaria a republic, and Tsar Simeon II and the queen mother were required to leave the country. Elections for a Grand National Assembly to prepare a new constitution were held on October 27, 1946. The noncommunist opposition polled more than one million votes, or 28 percent of the total. When the assembly opened in November, the Agrarian leader, Nikola Petkov, emerged as the opposition’s principal spokesman. However, he was charged with plotting to overthrow the government and was expelled from the Grand National Assembly along with most of his associates. In June 1947 Petkov was arrested, and on September 23 he was executed. One week later the United States extended diplomatic recognition to the new regime; Great Britain had already done so in February.

The defeat of the political opposition coincided with the elimination of pluralism in Bulgarian society. This was accelerated after the founding congress of the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) in September 1947 in Poland, where Andrey A. Zhdanov delivered the message that Stalin desired a more rapid transformation of the socialist camp along Soviet lines.

In Bulgaria this resulted in increased pressure on the remaining noncommunist parties. The Socialist Party was formally absorbed by the Bulgarian Communist Party in August 1948, and socialists who remained in opposition were crushed by police repression. The Agrarian leader, Georgi Traikov, repudiated his party’s traditional ideology and defined a new role for it as the helpmate or “little brother” of the Bulgarian Communist Party in the countryside. By 1949 Zveno and the remaining smaller parties announced their “self-liquidation” and dissolved into the Fatherland Front, which in turn was converted into a broad “patriotic” organization under communist control.

In the Grand National Assembly a team of Soviet jurists assisted in the preparation of the “Dimitrov Constitution,” enacted on December 4, 1947. Modeled closely on the Soviet constitution of 1936, it provided a legal foundation for the reconstruction of the state on communist principles.

Reforms under the Fatherland Front

The Fatherland Front regime had launched an assault on private property almost immediately after the coup of September 9, 1944, employing a variety of legislative measures aimed at confiscating the wealth of “fascists” or “speculators.”

The Dimitrov Constitution provided for even larger measures of nationalization. All large-scale industries, banks, and insurance companies were nationalized, and government monopolies were established over retail trade. By the end of 1948, approximately 85 percent of industrial production was in the hands of the state, with another 7 percent carried on by cooperative organizations. The party also created the General Workers’ Trade Union, gradually forcing all workers’ organizations into it. Similarly, the youth organizations of the various parties were incorporated into the Dimitrov Communist Youth League.

Exarch Stefan, head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, sought to adapt to the new political regime, but he resisted the efforts of the Bulgarian Communist Party to control church affairs directly. In September 1948 he resigned his office under mysterious circumstances and retired to a monastery. His successor offered no resistance to legislation adopted in March 1949 that subjected all religious orders to state supervision. At the same time, 15 pastors from evangelical Protestant churches were arrested, tried, and executed for espionage and other alleged crimes. Soon afterward a number of Bulgarian Catholic clergy were tried for spying for the Vatican and for disseminating anticommunist propaganda. Among the executed was Bishop Evgeny Bosilkov, beatified by the Vatican in 1998.

The nearly 50,000 Bulgarian Jews who survived the war were encouraged to emigrate to Israel. The regime also attempted to deport ethnic Turks and Roma (Gypsies), causing the Turkish government to seal the border.

Stalinism and de-Stalinization

Traicho Kostov, who had been particularly instrumental in supervising the destruction of the opposition, was accused of treason and of collaborating with Yugoslavia’s communist leader Josip Broz Tito against Stalinism. Kostov’s execution in December 1949 was followed by the purge of thousands of “Kostovites” and others alleged to be criminals and spies.

Dimitrov died in office in July 1949 and was succeeded by Vasil Kolarov, who died in early 1950, and Vulko Chervenkov. Known as Bulgaria’s “Little Stalin,” Chervenkov followed policies aimed at developing Bulgaria according to the Soviet model. These included rapid industrialization, the forced collectivization of agriculture, heavy reliance on the police and security apparatus, and isolation from countries outside the Soviet bloc.

Stalin’s death in 1953 and the inauguration of the “New Course” in the Soviet Union had repercussions in Bulgaria. In 1954 Chervenkov accepted the Soviet model of collective leadership, remaining prime minister but yielding his post as party leader to Todor Zhivkov. The government also released several thousand political prisoners and moderated its economic policies in favour of raising living standards. The beginning of open de-Stalinization at the Soviet Union’s 20th Communist Party Congress in February 1956 was followed in Bulgaria by the April Plenum of the Bulgarian Communist Party, at which Chervenkov was accused of abuse of power and later removed from the premiership. There was some relaxation of censorship, and the victims of the Kostovite trials, including Kostov himself (posthumously), began to be rehabilitated.

These developments, however, did not put an end to communist repression, and the concentration (“labour reconstruction”) camps did not close until the early 1970s.

Late communist rule

Rise of Todor Zhivkov

After becoming prime minister in 1962, Zhivkov continued to hold the positions of head of state and head of party until 1989. An attempted putsch led by Gen. Ivan Todorov-Gorunya in 1965 was easily put down, and Zhivkov consistently managed to purge or undercut party leaders regarded as potential rivals. During the era of Zhivkov’s ascendancy, Bulgaria modeled its domestic policies on those of the Soviet Union, with long-term treaties linking Bulgaria’s economic development to the Soviets’. Bulgaria gave the highest priority to scientific and technological advancement and the development of trade skills appropriate to an industrial state. In 1948 approximately 80 percent of the population drew their living from the soil, but by 1988 less than one-fifth of the labour force was engaged in agriculture, with the rest concentrated in industry and the service sector.

By the 1960s Bulgaria had abandoned the isolationism that characterized the Chervenkov period. Although remaining steadfast in its commitments to the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, Bulgaria improved relations with its Balkan neighbours, particularly Greece, and expanded its economic and cultural relations with most Western states. Relations with Yugoslavia remained strained, however, over the persistence of the Macedonian question. In 1979 Bulgaria proposed a treaty with Yugoslavia that would guarantee the inviolability of the borders established after World War II; this proposal was rejected, however, because of Bulgaria’s refusal to admit the existence of a distinct Macedonian nationality. From the Bulgarian point of view, such an admission would both fly in the face of historical reality and legitimize Yugoslav claims on the Pirin region.

During the 1970s concern developed over the low birth rate of the ethnic Bulgarian population, and policies were adopted to encourage larger families, but without apparent effect. In late 1984 the government began a major campaign to “Bulgarize,” or assimilate, the country’s ethnic Turks. Measures aimed at the Turkish population, estimated to number approximately 800,000, included the discontinuation of Turkish-language publications and radio broadcasts and the requirement that Turks adopt Bulgarian names.

The ethnic Turkish population, however, resisted assimilation, and clashes with the authorities continued. In spite of official harassment, independent human rights groups were formed in defense of the Turks. In 1989, when the government of Turkey offered to accept refugees from Bulgaria, more than 300,000 ethnic Turks fled or were forcibly driven from the country by the communist authorities.

The era of reforms launched by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union had a major impact on Bulgaria, inspiring greater demands for openness and democratization. The increase in Bulgarian dissidents, a declining economic situation, and internal party rivalries led Zhivkov’s colleagues to force his resignation on November 10, 1989. He was later tried, sentenced, and imprisoned for embezzlement.

End of party rule

Under growing popular pressure, Zhivkov’s successors endorsed a policy of openness, pluralism, and respect for law, halted repression of the ethnic Turks, and took the first steps toward separating the Bulgarian Communist Party from the state, such as repealing its constitutional monopoly of power. After some shuffling of positions, Petar Mladenov was named head of state, Andrey Lukanov prime minister, and Alexander Lilov head of the Bulgarian Communist Party. In early 1990 the party held an extraordinary congress that enacted significant changes in party structure, and in April 1990 it renamed itself the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).

In the meantime, dissident groups had taken advantage of the country’s new freedoms to organize opposition political parties. Many of these joined the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), a coalition led by the sociologist Zheliu Zhelev. By the spring of 1990, at a roundtable held between early January and May 1990, the UDF and the BSP had agreed to free elections for a Grand National Assembly that would prepare a new constitution. In these June elections the socialists won a narrow majority. In July 1990 Mladenov resigned after it was discovered that he had recommended a military crackdown on protesters in late 1989. Because their majority was too small to allow them to govern alone, in August 1990 the BSP supported the election of Zhelev as head of state.

The National Assembly adopted a new constitution on July 12, 1991, which proclaimed Bulgaria a parliamentary republic and promised citizens a broad range of freedoms. During the summer several parties withdrew from the UDF coalition, and those that remained split into two factions: UDF (liberals) and UDF (movement). In elections for the National Assembly held in October 1991, the UDF (movement) won a narrow majority of seats over the BSP, with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF; primarily representing the country’s Turkish minority) gaining few seats; no other minority party gained the required minimum percentage of the vote to qualify for participation in parliament. The leader of the UDF, Philip Dimitrov, was elected prime minister and, with the support of the MRF, formed a government, without BSP participation. Under the new constitution, Zhelev was elected president for a five-year term in general elections held in January 1992.

Bulgaria’s transition

Dimitrov’s government launched an ambitious reform program aimed at changing the country into a pro-Western democracy with a market economy. Chief among the reforms were the liberalization of prices, the restitution of properties commandeered during the communist regime, and the restructuring of state-owned enterprises. Efforts were made to ease the external debt, build a legal framework for the new market infrastructure, and reach out to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. In 1992 Bulgaria joined the Council of Europe, and in 1993 it signed the Europe Agreement with the European Union, in which it sought membership.

Bulgaria recognized the newly independent former Yugoslav republics as states and on January 16, 1992, became the first country to recognize the Republic of Macedonia. The relationship between Bulgaria and Macedonia nevertheless continues to be complicated by the fact that Bulgaria does not recognize the existence of a separate Macedonian language or nation, claiming that Macedonian is simply a dialect of Bulgarian and that the Macedonians are really Bulgarians. In addition, successive Bulgarian governments have refused to recognize the existence of a Macedonian minority in Bulgaria and have attempted to suppress any expression of a Macedonian national identity among its citizens. In 2000 the United Macedonian Organization (OMO) “Ilinden”–Party for Economic Enhancement and Integration of the Population (PIRIN), an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, was refused recognition as a political party, an action that was condemned in 2000 by the European Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, President Zhelev grew critical of the UDF and Dimitrov’s government and received support from the MRF. In October 1992 Dimitrov’s government was forced to resign by a vote of no confidence. In December 1992 a new government dominated by the MRF was elected with support from the BSP. For the next two years, under the leadership of Zhelev’s adviser Luben Berov, reforms stagnated. In elections in December 1994 the BSP won an absolute majority and formed a government headed by party leader Zhan Videnov, which tried to reestablish subsidies for state-owned enterprises but faced financial losses. In early 1997, when monthly inflation reached about 240 percent, mass protests forced the government to resign.

Zhelev’s successor as president, Petar Stoyanov, called a new election, and, after a decisive victory, UDF leader Ivan Kostov formed a pro-market government. It reduced inflation by introducing a currency board (an institution dedicated to reinforcing a fixed exchange rate and to a monetary policy that defends that rate), sped up privatization, and in early 1997 applied for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In elections in June 2001 Simeon Saxecoburggotski, the former tsar of Bulgaria, led the newly formed National Movement for Simeon II (NDSV) to victory. The new prime minister weathered criticism that he and his ministers lacked political experience, and he continued Bulgaria’s program of financial restraint and increased privatization.

In 2002 Stoyanov was replaced as president by Georgi Parvanov, a candidate from a coalition of leftist and nationalist groups backed by the BSP who nevertheless declared his intent to not stray from the goals of membership in NATO and the EU. Parvanov was reelected in October 2006. Bulgaria became a member of NATO in 2004 and a member of the EU in 2007. Meanwhile, Saxecoburggotski’s party was defeated in the 2005 legislative elections, and Sergei Stanishev of the BSP became prime minister.

In 2008 Bulgaria’s governing institutions received a poor evaluation from the European Commission in its second report on Bulgaria’s progress as an EU member. The report concluded that Bulgaria had failed to make reasonable strides in reforming the judiciary, combating corruption, and fighting organized crime. In January 2009, during an extremely cold month, thousands of Bulgarians did not have electricity or heat, and production was halted in major enterprises across the country because of a disruption of natural gas deliveries throughout eastern and southern Europe, which resulted from a gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine. The crisis highlighted the weakness of Stanishev’s government, which was already struggling to deal with the effects of the global recession; the government also faced mounting allegations of corruption and of misappropriation of EU funds. In the parliamentary elections in July 2009, the centre-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (Grazhdani za Evropeisko Razvitie Balgariya; GERB), led by former Sofia mayor Boiko Borisov, garnered nearly 40 percent of the votes and secured 116 seats in the 240-seat National Assembly, while the Socialist-led Coalition for Bulgaria claimed only 40 seats. Borisov took office as prime minister on July 27.

In spite of Bulgaria’s exposure to ailing southern European economies—most notably, Greece—it weathered the financial crisis that plagued the region and even experienced modest growth. Although it remained the poorest country in the EU, exports and tourism boosted the economy, and austerity measures introduced by the Borisov administration encouraged foreign investors and analysts. Long-term unemployment remained a significant concern, but voters affirmed their support for Borisov when they elected GERB candidate Rosen Plevneliev president in October 2011. Bulgaria’s goal of greater integration with the EU continued to be frustrated, however, as EU authorities expressed concern that the country had not taken sufficient steps to reduce political corruption, organized crime, and threats to press freedom. As a result, despite having cleared numerous procedural hurdles, Bulgaria’s accession to the borderless Schengen zone was repeatedly delayed.

As the Borisov government continued to promote austerity, the Bulgarian public became increasingly vocal in its demands that something be done about the country’s rising unemployment and endemic poverty. Government corruption scandals and a hike in the price of electricity triggered a wave of increasingly violent protests in early 2013. The demonstrations signaled the broadest expression of popular unrest since the fall of communism, and Borisov resigned in February 2013. The following month, Borisov was replaced by Marin Raikov at the head of a technocratic caretaker administration that would rule until snap elections could be held. Those elections, held in May 2013, failed to produce a conclusive result, and voter turnout barely topped 50 percent. Although GERB obtained the largest percentage of votes, it fell far short of the number of parliamentary seats required to form a government. Additionally, the parties that had allied with GERB in Borisov’s minority government ruled out the possibility of supporting a GERB-led coalition. A government was ultimately formed by the Socialists and an ethnic Turkish party, with Plamen Oresharski, a former finance minister, installed as the nonpartisan technocratic prime minister. Although technically a minority government—the two parties commanded exactly half the seats in parliament—its creation was given silent assent by the nationalist Ataka party, which abstained from the vote that approved it.